Social and political revolt erupted in the European and world periphery in the decade prior to World War I, beginning with the First Russian Revolution in 1905, followed by the Iranian revolution of 1906, the great Rumanian peasant revolt of 1907, the Young Turk rebellion of 1908, the Greek military revolt of 1909, the overthrow of the Portuguese monarchy and the beginning of the Mexican revolution in 1910, and the Chinese revolution in 1911.

Stanley G. Payne
The Spanish Civil War

What triggered the revolutions and civil wars of the last century? What triggered the first and second world wars? One thing triggered them: ENMITY.

What is enmity?

Enmity is ill will, hostility, antipathy, animosity, rancor — and, above all, it is hatred — not passive, but active. It is a hatred that fuels the cruelty of war. It is the meaning of war. It is the reason for war. It is the all-in-all of war.

Recently the best-selling author, Graham Hancock, passionately decried the stupidity of America’s Pentagon budget to Joe Rogan. Money wasted on armaments, he said, could be used to end poverty or cure diseases. Hancock spoke as if enmity toward America was a kind of convenient fiction of the “powers-that-be.” He did not properly consider those who actively hate America, who want to see America burn.

It may be that Mr. Hancock’s intuition about a lost prehistorical civilization is worth considering, but his intuition about our present civilization is without merit. If America disarmed as he recommends, not only would a dismal poverty inflict the whole planet, but America’s collapse into military insignificance would signal a dark age of Sino-Russian global dominance — an age of slavery and persecution; an age in which dissenters would be imprisoned, tortured and executed by the tens of millions. One only has to look at the bloody oppressions of the police state in China, at the assassination of journalists in Russia, to know the fate that would be in store for us all.

To hear Mr. Hancock speak against my country’s weapons of defense, as if my country was the problem, is more than a little perplexing; especially as Mr. Hancock has no declared expertise in world affairs, no military knowledge, or degrees in political science. I cannot help wondering, as well, that he might be be speaking German if not for my country’s armament. Yet he damns my country’s defense establishment as if it alone stood in the way of mankind’s progress.

Hancock, who is by no means an enemy of America, has adopted the talking points of America’s enemy. If everyone believed in such talking points, who would benefit? It is, indeed, a case of cui bono; for nonsense of this kind has a purpose. Those who hate America want to see her defenseless. They have worked incessantly toward this end for decades.

Recently a reader sent me a picture of a mob of protestors burning an American flag in Los Angeles. Apparently I was supposed to express shock or surprise. If anyone is shocked, it is not me. Los Angeles is, in many respects, the territory of a foreign power. Many places in America are no longer American. They are opposed to the country, opposed to its defense, and want it to burn.

When I was in graduate school more than thirty years ago, many professors and graduate students were working to undo the country. I heard expressions of snarling hatred and contempt for America. It seemed, in fact, that this hatred was gradually becoming academically obligatory. It was, in those very days, that flag burning was judicially approved as “free speech” by the Supreme Court.” Many libertarians and conservatives approved of this decision. But then, given that dragon’s eggs were incubating inside the universities, the Supreme Court decision was more on the order of a landmark — halfway between the censuring of Joseph McCarthy and total destruction by fire.

Seriously. This is a country governed by very special fools. It has been governed by these fools for fifty to sixty years or more. Nearly all men, in all times, are foolish. But to live without a shred of instinct, without a sense of self-preservation, and to arrogantly regard one’s stupor as a superior state of consciousness, is damnable. God does not smile on it.

Enmity is hatred. It is the kind of hatred that burns flags. It is the kind of hatred that burns police precincts and suburbs. It is the kind of hatred that launches ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. It is the kind of hatred that organized the terror famine in Ukraine 90 years ago. It is the kind of hatred that gassed millions of Jews in the Second World War — that firebombed Dresden and put mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Do you think enmity is a fairytale? Do you think it is a myth advanced by the “military-industrial complex”? Think again. If we did not have a single rifle to defend ourselves, would the flag burners in Los Angeles suddenly salute our flag? No. They would proceed to burn down the whole country. Why? Because the flag signifies the country. They burn the flag now because they cannot burn the country.

When somebody burns your country’s flag what do you think they intend? Do you think burning a flag is a fun pastime? Do you think burning a police precinct is protected speech? Do you think burning the suburbs is an understandable form of protest?

And now Minneapolis burns. What other cities will burn? Let us consider, once more, that curious Latin phrase — cui bono. Let us consider the connection between the flag burning (by communists) in Los Angeles, and the burning of a police precinct in Minneapolis. They are, in fact, intimately connected.

One might ask, rhetorically, why the flags of America’s enemies aren’t burning? It is simple. They are the ones doing the burning — of flags and police precincts. They have incited the frenzy of the mob. They have used race and class and sex to divide America into hostile, warring camps. Their game is “divide and conquer.” And we — suckers that we are — play along with this game.

Does anyone see what is happening? Does anyone see who is behind it? Does anyone realize who stands to gain by it? — Not blacks, not whites, not Americans of any color.

Oh yes. We are very, very, special fools.

22 thoughts on “The Meaning of Enmity”

  1. Jeff, good post.

    It has become almost axiomatic on the Left that, regardless of the particular problem in the world, it’s always America’s fault. I have spent too many hours trying to persuade some of these folks otherwise but, sadly, have found that their belief is in the realm of a derangement. I suspect they don’t ever consider what would come after the “radical transformation” of our nation, other than some vague sense of a utopia.

    That said, I personally wouldn’t put Nagasaki and Hirsohima into the same category as the Holocaust and similar atrocities. If I have my history right, the U.S. invited the Japanese to surrender and thereby avoid the dropping of the H-bombs, but they adamantly refused to go along. I don’t think the U.S. leaders were motivated by enmity so much as a desire to bring the War swiftly to a close.

    1. I am afraid the Japanese were not offered terms of conditional surrender prior to the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Please note: Japan did not surrender unconditionally as Germany did. Emperor Hirohito was the only head of state of a major Axis power to retain his position after the war.

      1. I like the article but I too gave pause about hatred being the reason nuclear was used during WWII in Japan. The Japanese did not even surrender (We can argue about the meaning of surrender but the papers were signed on that ship) after the first bomb and clearly the only alternative way to end the war would be to street fight the locals in all of Japan who were clearly prepared to fight to the death. This would have been an American bloodbath. We had no choice.

      2. Sometimes killing is done in cold blood. You are arguing that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a cold-blooded action, done on the basis of strategic calculation. Perhaps I should amend the article. But then, if you study the debate which took place in May 1945, among our highest ranking military and civilian leaders, asked by President Truman to approve early peace terms for Japan, you may be surprised at how one very emotional and angry objection to the terms kept the war going for another ten weeks so that the bombs were dropped. The person who had this outburst that lengthened the war was none other than the head of the Office of War Information, Elmer Davis. He was a famous journalist who gave Edward R. Murrow’s career a push. Davis violently opposed the peace offer to Japan, and completely upset the plan of those who wanted the offer to be made in late May 1945. Elmer’s angry outburst was, without question, a passionate argument of hate, which violently objected to letting the Japanese off so easy. This emotionalism was not opposed by any arguments by anyone. Why? Elmer’s hatred of the Japanese empire was widely shared — that’s why. He thus ended the discussion and killed the peace proposal until after Potsdam — at General George Marshall’s suggestion. Elmer’s hate for Japan, shared by many in that room (some who had lost sons), was the effective reason Hiroshima and Nagasaki we’re bombed. It may have been an excuse to extend the war with Japan on the part of George Marshall, who might have had his own reasons. Then again, hatred for the Japanese was not an uncommon emotion at that time. I do not like propaganda histories that omit the truth of what happened. I am strictly opposed to the idea that my country has to be morally perfect in all its actions in order to be defended. Is hate morally wrong? Why would it be wrong to hate someone for attacking your country, for destroying a fleet at anchor on a beautiful Sunday morning? I will reproduce the Congressional testimony on this if you don’t believe my account, and you can make up your own mind. Many of our leaders thought the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was wrong, including Douglas MacArthur himself. President Truman, surprisingly, wanted to offer peace terms early if there was a consensus among military and civilian leaders. But there was no consensus because of the raw rancorous feelings expressed by Elmer Davis and shared by others. It is strange that this story is so infrequently told and so little known. Despite what you want to believe, Americans are capable of hating their enemies. It is not pretty, but thank God for it — as we are dying of all this tolerance and forbearance toward people whose hate for us is unrequited.

  2. Hello, both this case as the second wave of the Chinese pest that is coming, generate more chaos, looks the attack Russian/Chinese is once nearer.

  3. well said. i especially like the part about us having no instinct for self preservation.

  4. There is a nationwide trend of state universities establishing their own police force, invariably designated as Department of Public Safety. When a student expresses conservative values, these sworn peace officers, has a student lodge a frivolous complaint, as veneer in order to retaliate against the innocent conservative student.

    Where does the term, Public Safety, originate?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Public_Safety

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilien_Robespierre

    1. The Committee of Public Safety, set up under Robespierre during the French Revolution, initiated a Reign of Terror in which countless thousands were guillotined.

  5. Gustav Holst (1874 – 1934): The Planets. Mars, the Bringer of War.

    1. In more “modern” terms: Jimi Hendrix’s infamous (and infinitely brutal) demolition of the U.S. anthem at the closing of the 1969 Woodstock festival:

  6. “I am the Spirit that denies!
    And rightly too; for all that doth begin
    Should rightly to destruction run;
    ‘Twere better then that nothing were begun.
    Thus everything that you call Sin,
    Destruction – in a word, as Evil represent –
    That is my own, real element.”

    Goethe. Faust, Part I. Mephistopheles, introducing himself to Faust.

  7. I am unable to post a comment for some reason.  I have posted at least one comment previously without having to create any special account, as I recall.  Why can’t I post one now?  H.R. Holm /// hrholm@yahoo.com    5-29  

  8. Good post Jeff. thanks. The latest from “Boris” is that
    1 – China has 6-8 months until it cannot feed 600 million of its people
    2 – second wave is covid-20 and will be MUCH more deadly than covid-19
    3 – second wave released in Sept 2020
    4 – covid-20 vaccine or treatment is in and developed by Russia (for Russia) – (Putin (I think publically) said he wats multiple does of hyroxycloraquine for all his people)

    5 – china thought first-wave would hurt US economy a lot more than it actually did. But Putin was not sold and so created covid-20.
    6 – second wave/covid 20 will utterly destroy US economy.
    7- china needs to find living space for 600 million of its people or kill them all.
    8 – my note – china just launched 2 new AC’s
    9 – Xi needs a reason to start WW3 (see #1 above)

    -Sean McIntire

  9. Speaking of fires burning, seems to be getting worse tonight. Long list of impacted cities, with 4 or so having it in a bad way like Minneapolis. Precincts under attack in Brooklyn and other locations, reports of police being injured. Seems the trend is to attack police departments. Won’t be long until someone dies.

  10. Jeff, not sure if you can comment it seems that Donald Trump has announced in his conference today that he will be revoking the US-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992 enacted by George H W Bush senior in 1992. Also Trump has announced there will be sanctions on Hong Kong and Chinese officials, do you think the sanctions will hurt Communist China in any way. Also about the National Security Legislation in Hong Kong which becomes law on September. The National Security Legislation in Hong Kong will eventually make opposition towards the Chinese Communist Party illegal in Hong Kong. It seems what we talked about during the violent Hong Kong Protests that it was orchestrated to make Hong Kong become part of the Mainland early is now becoming very real

  11. Good post Jeff. If Covid-20 is released in September as Boris predicts, and it succeeds in destroying the economy right before the election, the result could be a President Biden, as horrifying as that sounds. If Biden is elected, the Chicoms will hardly need to attack us militarily, as he is already deeply in their pocket. I tend to believe that he is just a placeholder, especially since his ghoulish picture with the black facemask went viral. I don’t think he will recover from that image. But no doubt whoever is selected to take his place will be a far leftist, if not an outright Communist.
    I believe that the Democrats and the media will totally cooperate with the attempt to destroy America with Covid-20, as they did with the earlier milder version. They are desperate to prevent Trump’s re-election at any cost, lest he uncover more rocks and discover the depths of their treachery.

  13. Another great post, apropos and on the nose. This weekend I was thinking along similar lines. I thought that so much of our issues right now, thinking specifically about the riots, are because we have completely surrendered ourselves to contention: strife, fighting, etc. On the roads, in politics, religion, sports, in our families, on Twitter (barf, the Sheol of the internet) it’s an eternal round of strife.

Comments are now closed.